June 28th Patch Notes : Ranger Changes

[Patsoor.6425]

4 hours ago, Zorby.8236 said:

 

I've heard this before. The infamous 16 bullet points.

Wait, is that the salty dev who got "busted" with some nice quotes?
The reason why ranger updates suck is simply bc he doesn't play ranger, he made the changes according to the info he found on wiki.
I mean how can they put somebody in charge of making changes for balance update, and he doesn't even know the class??

Anet should have 9 ppl, each playing antoher main, so these ppl can at least defend their profession.

This patch is gonna hurt all rangers, our dps got nerfed into the ground, why? we were not even close to the topdps benchmarks that your beloved virtuoso or mechanist can do?

Dear Anet, next update please  provide a proper funeral for powerslb (and  Ele & Warrior, and power reaper).

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

38 minutes ago, Patsoor.6425 said:

Wdym slb was & probably stil will be superstrong? it is not bad, & thats it.
We were not superstrong, (definitly not after last nerf we got) and now they even made it worse.
Only in some encounters (where there are short burst phases like Adina, KC or Xera) powerSLB can be top or near top (always other classes that can just get the edge over a powerSLB if they are good.
In almost any other case we are not even near top dps.
We can't even bring alacspirits bc of the traitline is useless in power.

Untamed dps wise is something I don't even want to talk about this garbage spec.
The only use so far for untamed is  heal,res,alac, with cc cooldown trait you can use search& resque & nature spirit really fast if needed. 
 

Soulbeast was really strong because OWP was secretly changed (as an experiment) to go off the soulbeast's stats when sharing (which was a huge boost as we have a ton of extra stat boosts via pet merging). I don't know why they didn't just revert it, as it was an experiment, but here we are.

[Jimbru.6014]

21 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Avatar still has a 10second cooldown in WvW, that's low enough to work around. The issue is the lack of utility other supports have.

Lingering Light change is good. Carrying over outgoing healing when not in the avatar is exactly what it needed, plus the much needed buff to Natural Mender.

Staff needs more love. A complete rework of #2 to something like guardian staff #2 would be great for wvw. 

Overall positive to the druid changes. Most of everything else is meh, especially outside of pve. The spotter change is terrible and straight up lazy.

Trying to think positively about the Spotter change...

- Spotter giving pulsing Fury makes it a regular automatic source of Fury with no extra clicks or dependency on other abilities. Basically, it makes Fury one less thing to worry about.
- That's helpful for LI builds, or other builds that already have too many buttons to push.
- It's  useful for soloing, or for small group situations  where you might otherwise be lacking in boons.
- It could help fill any gaps in Fury uptime in larger groups.
- If you're part of a regular group, like for raiding or whatever, you being able to provide extra Fury uptime might give your partners more freedom to optimize their own abilities and make the whole group better.

That's just some ideas, anyway. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

The Might change to Druids, I'm OK with that because if it's possible for groups to have TOO MUCH of a particular boon, it's Might. Almost every class in the game has mechanisms for generating either self or group Might, plus runes and sigils of Strength if you swing that way. So for Druids to give up a little Might for these improvements, really isn't much of a sacrifice.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Jimbru.6014

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

1 minute ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

Trying to think positively about the Spotter change...

- Spotter giving pulsing Fury makes it a regular automatic source of Fury with no extra clicks or dependency on other abilities. Basically, it makes Fury one less thing to worry about.
- That's helpful for LI builds, or other builds that already have too many buttons to push.
- It's  useful for soloing, or for small group situations  where you might otherwise be lacking in boons.
- It could help fill any gaps in Fury uptime in larger groups.
- If you're part of a regular group, like for raiding or whatever, you being able to provide extra Fury uptime might give your partners more freedom to optimize their own abilities and make the whole group better.

That's just some ideas, anyway. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

The Might change to Druids, I'm OK with that because if it's possible for groups to have TOO MUCH of a particular boon, it's Might. Almost every class in the game has mechanisms for generating either self or group Might, plus runes and sigils of Strength if you swing that way. So for Druids to give up a little Might for these improvements, really isn't much of a sacrifice.

Ranger doesn't need more Fury. There's 100% uptime for warhorn with warhorn 5, storm spirit supposedly will have 100% uptime, or Spotter will have 100% uptime. We don't need all 3.

 

Saying 'there's too much might' when encounters are balanced around it isn't really right... excess might spills over and isn't used. Oh well. Better too much than too little. If might wasn't balanced around for encounters, it'd be different, as might would then be a bonus rather than a requirement.

 

Druid isn't getting any improvements from having 100% Fury uptime via Spotter when you already get it with WH 5. Spotter needs something to help ranger out more.

[Sebrent.3625]

Regardless of core/espec ...

If I take spirits, it's likely to provide boons including alacrity so I'm likely taking Nature Magic as one of my traitlines so that I can take the GM trait Nature's Vengeance to provide alacrity and longer boon durations from Spirits.

Since I'm taking Nature Magic, I have to choose between the Master traits Evasive Purity, Spirited Arrival, or Windborne Notes.

If I took Spirited Arrival, I could accomplish with minimal effort 100% uptime on Fury and Vigor just from pet swapping in combat.

Given that, why would I want to take Sun Spirit (Vigor) or Storm Spirit (Fury) ?

[Levetty.1279]

1 hour ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

It's  useful for soloing, or for small group situations  where you might otherwise be lacking in boons.

It's in the same line as Vicious Quarry and  Furious grip.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Ranger doesn't need more Fury. There's 100% uptime for warhorn with warhorn 5, storm spirit supposedly will have 100% uptime, or Spotter will have 100% uptime. We don't need all 3.

 

Saying 'there's too much might' when encounters are balanced around it isn't really right... excess might spills over and isn't used. Oh well. Better too much than too little. If might wasn't balanced around for encounters, it'd be different, as might would then be a bonus rather than a requirement.

 

Druid isn't getting any improvements from having 100% Fury uptime via Spotter when you already get it with WH 5. Spotter needs something to help ranger out more.

 

I don't really want to be pigeonholed into using WH or a spirit to get fury uptime.  That means you are pigenholed into NM, which is generally bad outside boonbeast.  

The spotter nerf is bad not because of the precision loss, but because of the fury replacement not pulsing the same way. Essentially the problem is they replaced an adjustable crit amount with a hard one via a boon.  So you have to lower the time threshold; if they left spotter as-is they could have just either increased the precision (say from 100- to 200 or ~5% to ~10%) or reduced it depending on what they are going for.  

But it sounds like you are going to pulse 3s of Fury every 9s, which makes it worthless for sharing and only somewhat useful for an automatic Fury source on entering combat.  I'm guessing they did it this way as they have always been afraid of a bunch of ranger's getting together like Voltron and destroying people (same logic follows for why they nerfed OWP in PvE).  

[BumboJumbo.1308]

8 hours ago, Patsoor.6425 said:

Wdym slb was & probably stil will be superstrong? it is not bad, & thats it.
We were not superstrong, (definitly not after last nerf we got) and now they even made it worse.
Only in some encounters (where there are short burst phases like Adina, KC or Xera) powerSLB can be top or near top (always other classes that can just get the edge over a powerSLB if they are good.
In almost any other case we are not even near top dps.
We can't even bring alacspirits bc of the traitline is useless in power.

Untamed dps wise is something I don't even want to talk about this garbage spec.
The only use so far for untamed is  heal,res,alac, with cc cooldown trait you can use search& resque & nature spirit really fast if needed. 
 

Soulbeast is super strong in that it can still burst really well while giving unique buffs to a party of 5.

"...powerSLB can be top or near top  (always other classes that can just get the edge over a powerSLB if they are good."

Great! (Even if it's in select few places).

In a world where the majority of the player base aren't even a fraction to being a master at the game It personally doesn't matter to me nor unskilled players.  Unless, of course that the nerf to one wolf pack was far too harsh and not even a low intensity build can get something like 20k dps.

"We can't even bring alacspirits bc of the traitline is useless in power."

If a low intensity build can't reach high damage numbers (20k dps atleast) post-patch while being able to freely use the nature magic trait line then I'd agree. In that case the spirits need to be balanced again.

"Untamed dps wise is something I don't even want to talk about this garbage spec"

We're in the same boat here!

[Abyssisis.3971]

On a positive note, we might get a reason why the developer decided to nerf owp!

 

”Tomorrow morning the June 28 release will go live along with the balance changes previewed on Friday. As soon as we can, we’ll follow up with the ‘design notes’ for the update.”

[Sebrent.3625]

@Gotejjeken.1267I'm curious if they'll push Ranger to one of the pet specs (core or untamed instead of sb) so that we'll maybe see a Tiger for 100% uptime on Fury; largely independent of traitlines. ./shrug Will see how things shake out in the coming weeks after tomorrow.

[Lazze.9870]

On 6/27/2022 at 12:56 AM, BatelGeuce.3591 said:

I won't call the druid changes a "buff" untill I see how the build works after the spirit changes.

The druid changes are a buff no matter how you slice it, spirits aren't druid specific utilities, they are ranger utilities.

Druid as a build in pve is worse with none of the class specific buffs, but druid itself, as in the traitline and everything else directly tied to it, was buffed. Except GotL of course, but I don't think one less stack of might in pve will matter.

Edit: of course, this is too confusing to people because Anet has convinced people that spirits are in fact druid exclusive utilities at this point and that the spec is only meant to be played in pve.

Edited June 29, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Lazze.9870]

On 6/27/2022 at 12:26 AM, Beddo.1907 said:

It's 10s if you get CA juice. It shouldn't be a problem after the trait change but I'd rather see the numbers before being sure. Overall druid healing options are quite low outside of CA.

I have played druid extensively in WvW, there are zero problems having 100 % astral force by the time the avatar is off its 10s cooldown. The lingering Light change only makes it more certain while overall being a stronger trait when leaving the avatar.

The issue with druid from a wvw standpoint is that scrapper is superbusted with condi conversion as opposed to cleansing, group stealth access and superspeed+quickness. As a pure healer and cleanser, druid isn't too shabby in wvw and this update only improved it in that aspect.

[Lazze.9870]

16 hours ago, Jimbru.6014 said:

Trying to think positively about the Spotter change...

Pulsing fury that you don't have to think about at all is never useless, for solo play it's better than spotter. But it's still lazy. And rev got the exact same trait with their change to Assassin's presence.

The shittiest part about it is actually the lack of alternatives for power builds where fury uptime isn't a problem. The sword trait isn't terrible, but it's usefulness varies. Especially in pvp and wvw where the quickness duration from it is miniscule.

But well, it's not like skirmishing ever provided any variety. It's basically take these traits if you play power, these traits if condi, this trait for traps, this trait for shortbow etc. The first two minors are still boring. Well, all three minors are. Flanking depending modifiers are such a pve mindset.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Oh look I was right all along, suprise, surprise...

Ranger got alac, on spirits' actives, making untamed best spec for upkeeping it, exactly as I predicted.
How did that saying go? "He who realizes something 24h before everyone else is called an idiot for one day"..

[Levetty.1279]

15 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

for solo play it's better than spotter

How when that line already gives you perma fury?

15 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Flanking depending modifiers are such a pve mindset.

Isn't even useful for PvE content since even in a group you have to all stack on top of each other.

[Lazze.9870]

Just now, Levetty.1279 said:

How when that line already gives you perma fury?

Right, 5 seconds every 9th second at most is 100 % uptime.

Not even when counting the useless getting hit process from vicious quarry will Skirmishing by itself provide 100 % fury uptime in a solo situation.

You likely already had fury from other traitlines and skills though.

2 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Isn't even useful for PvE content since even in a group you have to all stack on top of each other.

Let me rephrase: trait that excells when fighting dumbdumb targets, most likely AI/NPC.

[Lazze.9870]

21 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Ranger got alac, on spirits' actives, making untamed best spec for upkeeping it, exactly as I predicted.
How did that saying go? "He who realizes something 24h before everyone else is called an idiot for one day"..

Well, you still are, because druid is still easily the best user for alac spirits because it slots perfectly fine into the builds that it was already running. 

Alac spirit untamed is a nice meme though. And exactly what people wanted: a new elite spec that depends on spirit to see any play in pve. 

Edited June 28, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

46 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Well, you still are, because druid is still easily the best user for alac spirits because it slots perfectly fine into the builds that it was already running. 

Alac spirit untamed is a nice meme though. And exactly what people wanted: a new elite spec that depends on spirit to see any play in pve. 

Alac spirit untamed, according to multiple people from the SnowCrows Help Desk Discord (message me in game, I can get you the link, don't want to post here in case anet rees), isn't going to be that much of a meme. It sounds like a meme for sure, and I didn't believe it at first, but it'll be a genuine alac DPS. Not the best, but something.

[Soilder.3607]

2 hours ago, Lazze.9870 said:

As a pure healer and cleanser, druid isn't too shabby in wvw and this update only improved it in that aspect.

This is actually true from someone who also plays Druid almost exclusively in comped groups in WvW. Its healing and cleansing abilities are about on par with Scrapper but if offers virtually no utility outside of immobilization. It also outheals Tempest but Tempest out cleanses Druid pretty handedly while offering utility in the form of Auras and might stacking.

 

But this update will also result in Druid losing 25% outgoing healing while in CA mode, which is where Druid does the most of its healing. So I think the net healing output of Druid will ultimately decrease even with the buffs to Natural Mender, Ancestral Grace, and the 10% outgoing modifier from Lingering Light while outside CA mode.

[Lazze.9870]

15 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

But this update will also result in Druid losing 25% outgoing healing while in CA mode, which is where Druid does the most of its healing. So I think the net healing output of Druid will ultimately decrease even with the buffs to Natural Mender, Ancestral Grace, and the 10% outgoing modifier from Lingering Light while outside CA mode.

My experience is that the 50 % outoing from LL while in CA was nice, but never necessary to properly heal your subsquad. I often ran the might trait or just ancient seed for more immob focus. I think losing some of those huge heal burts that resulted from the 50 % modifier is worth it if it means stronger heals across the board. Sustained healing is often better than burst healing in WvW, and this version of LL will basically boost any other buffs they do to druid outside of CA in the future.

What really grinds my gear is that they do zero updates to Nature Magic to provide druid (and ranger in general) with some more supportive options to compete with scrapper/tempest. It's too selfish of a traitline when not using spirits, and we already have that with Wilderness Survival. Even just making Evasive Purity an aoe cleanse would be nice, and that's really not much to ask.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[Soilder.3607]

18 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

My experience is that the 50 % outoing from LL while in CA was nice, but never necessary to properly heal your subsquad. I often ran the might trait or just ancient seed for more immob focus. I think losing some of those huge heal burts that resulted from the 50 % modifier is worth it if it means stronger heals across the board. Sustained healing is often better than burst healing in WvW, and this version of LL will basically boost any other buffs they do to druid outside of CA in the future.

What really grinds my gear is that they do zero updates to Nature Magic to provide druid (and ranger in general) with some more supportive options to compete with scrapper/tempest. It's too selfish of a traitline when not using spirits, and we already have that with Wilderness Survival. Even just making Evasive Purity an aoe cleanse would be nice, and that's really not much to ask.

Well said about the Nature Magic changes. There is more they could've done to push Druid as an alternative healer in WvW but it seems their focus with Druid has mostly been PvE in nature throughout the years seeing as or what was its status for a long time as the premier raid support healer.

 

There is no real reason for them to reduce the outgoing healing while within CA mode to begin with because Druid is at best on par with Scrapper in terms of healing output. An increase in sustained healing would be good but Druid was built as a burst healer and doesn't have the tools to do much healing outside of CA mode as it is. There is Ancestral Grace, Glyph of Rejuvenation (which I sometimes combine with Cultivated Synergy for outstanding burst healing), Glyph of the Stars (which is phenomenal for its conditon cleansing/immunity but requires your tag to stay still/not move much) and that's it. Astral Wisp is unusable in any PvP encounter and Solar Beam basically serves to build Astral Force; a 10% modifier has hardly any effect on it. Those two skills really needed to be reworked to better serve Druid healers and I don't see why Astral Wisp didn't get changed being so terrible meanwhile Guardian Staff #2 received an amazing rework into a decent healing skill + blast finisher while Guardian itself was already meta.

[Lazze.9870]

49 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

I don't see why Astral Wisp didn't get changed being so terrible meanwhile Guardian Staff #2 received an amazing rework into a decent healing skill + blast finisher while Guardian itself was already meta.

Because one class is guardian and the other is ranger.

I know that sounds whiny, but at this point it can't be anything else. Astral Whisp is such a sorry excuse for a skill and it has survived ever since the launch of HoT. It's a use and forget skill that is near impossible to get any use of outside of pve.

49 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

There is no real reason for them to reduce the outgoing healing while within CA mode to begin with because Druid is at best on par with Scrapper in terms of healing output.

Perhaps, but if that's a necessary trade-off I personally prefer it over the old version. Would have been great if they could follow up with some staff changes and support buffs in other areas though...

... like making the aforementioned Glyph of the Star more useable by making it either follow you or make it affect an area as it does now without channeling it.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

20 minutes ago, Lazze.9870 said:

Because one class is guardian and the other is ranger.

I know that sounds whiny, but at this point it can't be anything else. Astral Whisp is such a sorry excuse for a skill and it has survived ever since the launch of HoT. It's a use and forget skill that is near impossible to get any use of outside of pve.

Perhaps, but if that's a necessary trade-off I personally prefer it over the old version. Would have been great if they could follow up with some staff changes and support buffs in other areas though...

... like making the aforementioned Glyph of the Star more useable by making it either follow you or make it affect an area as it does now without channeling it.

Staff is such a hit and miss weapon.

 

Staff 1? Nerfed into oblivion, wouldn't mind seeing more healing or a tad bit more damage, but its a ranged beam auto, I can see why it stays.

Staff 2? Might as well not exist even in PvE.

Staff 3? Absolutely broken in PvE, trivializes some raids such as healing the kite in Q1. Kind of needed in pvp/wvw due to the range, but could be nerfed a little as it's a ground target move skill. 1k-900 units would probably keep it afloat while also nerfing it.

Staff 4? Niche use even when it's useful. More damage, longer condis, a faster travel time, or something else to buff it is needed.

Staff 5? Less niche, but still not anywhere near as useful as it should be, at least in pvp modes. The healing projectiles don't maintain their velocity, so they tend to be too slow and short range to be useful.

[Lazze.9870]

8 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Staff 3? Absolutely broken in PvE, trivializes some raids such as healing the kite in Q1. Kind of needed in pvp/wvw due to the range, but could be nerfed a little as it's a ground target move skill. 1k-900 units would probably keep it afloat while also nerfing it.

Hello no, removing the evade was already a hard enough nerf as is. It does NOT need any further nerfs in pvp/wvw.

Staff 4 is fine, could be quicker, larger, whatever. 

Staff 5 just needs to be larger. The healing projectiles from it are useless.

Staff 2 is the one they absolutely need to change. To an area targeted damage and heal skill, and whatever else they can mash into it. A blast finisher, some relevant boons, anything. Yeet that dumb whisp out of the game already.

Edited June 28, 2022 by Lazze.9870

[philvaneyck.1932]

These changes are a joke?